VIA CN-13000 beeps and won't boot after BIOS flash - HELP!!!

Hello all,

I'm having 'issues' with my CN-13000 and could really do with some advice please! I needed to update the BIOS to fix a display issue (original thread here: Monitor not working due to BIOS oddity? Please help!!!. The flash seemed to go fine, and it said it updated OK but when I restarted, nothing...

The fan spins and I get the following sequence of beeps:
Long beep (approx 2 sec) followed immediately by two short (.25 sec each) beeps. Then 2 sec pause, then constant high-pitched beeps (.25 sec each).
After some searching on the boards, I've found the beep codes for the Award BIOS (http://www.amptron.com/html/bios.beepcodes.html). According to that, the first 3 (1 long, 2 short) beeps would indicate a video adaptor failure, and the constant beeps would indicate an overheating CPU (not likely!!!).

From this, I figured that my RAM was to blame. So I pulled a stick of DDR2-3200 from my desktop and switched it with the DDR2-4200 that had been in the CN-13000, and the beeping returned to exactly the same as before.

Then I tried disconnecting the screen, but again no change....

I've nearly surrendered to the fact that I probably killed the BIOS when flashing it.. I found this site that sells replacement BIOS roms preprogrammed (http://www.recoverybios.com) so I'll probably just order a replacement BIOS rom from them and see what happens.

Before I go to all that effort though, does anyone have any suggestions for some more things to try? Help would be much MUCH appreciated!!!

You can not 'kill' that BIOS literally, you can just overwrite it, because it is a removable flash eeprom.
I think, a bios flasher MUST save the original data. (onto floppy or HDD)
That bios is a standard flash eeprom, so having the original content a handy man could restore it. Ask a kind serviceman having an eeprom programmer.
Remove that bios chip carefully by means of two screwdriver or any pointed tool, pulling both corners at the same time. Or just carry the whole mobo with you, size does not matter...

That BIOS-excange could work, but it is very difficult to find a friend with the same mobo and who allows you this 'extremely dangerous' thing...

Thanks for that bblazs... I think I'm just gonna order the preprogrammed replacement... It's only €16 so not the end of the world. I don't know anyone with a similar motherboard ... No harm to have a spare one in case the same thing happens again.

Final question - should I order the replacement rom with the original BIOS on it or the one I was trying to update???

Hi,
I had three Epia CN's all with the older bios and flashed them all the same way with a bootable cdrom. The first 2 worked just fine and the third decided die while programming the EEPROM. I followed the link above and swapped the roasted EEPROM into an already booted mobo reflashed it and everything is working again. I just wanted to let people know that the above method works if you have two similar mobos and one with a dead bios. Thanks for the info.